


Saturday

by yet_intrepid



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Gen, Les Choristes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-09
Updated: 2013-09-09
Packaged: 2017-12-26 02:07:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/960310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yet_intrepid/pseuds/yet_intrepid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Feuilly, three years old in 1944, is sent away from his parents to a questionable boarding school. But he's sure that his daddy will come to find him on Saturday.</p><p>Les Choristes AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Saturday

“My daddy’s coming to find me Saturday.”

It was 1944. Feuilly, three years old, stood by his assigned bed at Fond de l’Étang, arms folded stubbornly. The children’s supervisor sighed heavily. “Yes, you said that already. But today isn’t Saturday, so you have to get in bed.”

Feuilly frowned, but he obeyed. The man was mean-looking and yelled a lot, and Feuilly didn’t like yelling. He wanted to see his mommy and daddy again, but he knew he had to wait until Saturday. That was what they had told him when they kissed him goodbye—he had to be brave and go with the neighbor to stay with lots of other boys, but Daddy would come to find him on Saturday.

“Monsieur,” he said as he climbed under the covers, “how many days to Saturday?”

“Go to sleep,” said the supervisor.

——

“Is today Saturday?” he asked the boy beside him when they got up. “My daddy’s coming to find me Saturday.”

The boy helped him put his shoes on. “No,” he said. “Today’s Friday. Tomorrow is Saturday. So next time you wake up.”

“Combeferre!” shouted the supervisor.

“Yes, monsieur?” responded the boy, finishing with Feuilly’s shoes and going over.

“Don’t encourage him,” was the response.

Feuilly didn’t know what that meant. He was just happy that Saturday was soon.

——

On Saturday, Combeferre helped him with his shoes again and insisted that he wait through breakfast and roll call before running down to the gate. Feuilly was a little worried—what if his daddy came and could not find him?—but he was glad to have something to eat. Finally, he ran out the door of the boarding school to stand by the white metal gate and stare down the road. Combeferre followed him.

“Is your daddy coming to look for you too?” Feuilly asked after he had spent perhaps ten minutes gazing intently and shifting from one foot to the other.

Combeferre laughed, but Feuilly didn’t think he looked very happy. “No,” he said, ruffling Feuilly’s hair. “I stay here. This is where I go to school, where I live.”

Feuilly’s face scrunched up. “Is it fun?”

“It’s…not bad,” Combeferre said. “There’s lots of kids.”

“People yell a lot.”

“Yes.” Combeferre sighed. “They do.”

It started to rain.

——

A car came up the drive. Feuilly beamed up at Combeferre, clutching the bars between chubby fists as Père Fauchelevent came hurrying out to unlock the gate.

“Telegram!” came the call, but Feuilly was running out the gate anyway, shouting, “Daddy, daddy!”

Combeferre ran after him. Père Fauchelevent took the telegram. It was for the headmaster.

Feuilly broke into sobs as he saw and did not recognize the driver of the car. Combeferre took his hand and led him back into the school.

——

“You know,” Combeferre whispered, as he held the sobbing child in his arms and rocked him, “Saturday isn’t just once. There’ll be another one and maybe that’s the one your daddy meant. You just have to wait. Seven days, that’s all.”

Feuilly lifted his head from Combeferre’s shoulder, tears shining in his eyes and on his cheeks. “A—another Saturday?”

“Yes,” said Combeferre. “Another one. Saturday always comes again.”

He saw the supervisor out of the corner of his eye, shaking his head.

——

“Combeferre,” said the headmaster, “the supervisor sent you to me because you have been spending time with our newest pupil, young Feuilly.”

Combeferre inclined his head. Surely he couldn’t be in trouble for that? “Yes, Monsieur Director,” he answered.

“And you have been encouraging him to believe that his parents could come for him any Saturday, although they did not appear when they promised.”

“Well—yes, Monsieur Director.”

“I received a telegram this morning. Both Mme. and M. Feuilly are dead.”

Combeferre swallowed hard. But the headmaster allowed him no time to absorb the shock.

“Please send in Feuilly to receive the news.”

His head jerked up. “Monsieur, you can’t—not like that—he’s too young, Monsieur.”

The headmaster shrugged. “Would you prefer to inform him yourself?”

“I—” Combeferre straightened up. “Yes, Monsieur Director. I’ll do it.”

“Tonight.”

“Yes, Monsieur Director.”

The headmaster waved him out.

——

“Feuilly, I need to tell you something sad and important, okay? Come sit with me.”

“Okay,” said Feuilly. He perched beside Combeferre on the stairs.

“Do you know what ‘dead’ means?”

Feuilly shook his head.

Combeferre took a deep breath. This was going to be more difficult than he’d thought.

Feuilly did not understand anything Combeferre said to him. Not “your daddy and mommy are in heaven,” not “your daddy and mommy are far away for a very long time,” not “your daddy and mommy went to sleep and won’t wake up anymore.”

Anything that Combeferre tried, Feuilly answered with, “But my daddy is coming to find me Saturday.”

Combeferre gave up. He had tried to obey the headmaster, and he had tried to give Feuilly the news gently. If one of the teachers managed to get through by going about it harshly, at least Combeferre would know that he had tried to protect Feuilly from such a blow.

——

But despite constant explanations, despite the fact over the years he certainly grew to understand what “dead” meant, Feuilly never stopped waiting for Saturday.

His daddy had said it, and it had to be true.

——

One day, in January of 1949, a new supervisor with white hair and a white beard came to the gate. “Hello,” he said. “Are you all alone? What are you doing there?”

“I’m waiting for Saturday,” said Feuilly.

“Why?”

“My daddy’s coming to find me Saturday,” said Feuilly.

“Well,” said the man gently, “today’s not Saturday.”

And when the gate was opened for him, he took Feuilly by the hand and led him inside.

Feuilly was not sure that it was not Saturday, after all.


End file.
